Lessee where to begin, as my flight was at 6am on the Tuesday morning and i had to be in Edinburgh for 4, i didnt bother going to bed as i would have been getting up at 2 anyway. So i stayed up hoping to get some sleep on the plane. No dice. 32 hours of awakeness later i arrived in Portland, the flight landed almost an hour early but then i had to stand in the Worlds longest queue for immigration as there was only 1 forign persons desk open, eventually they opened a 2nd but still. but i got there and they let me in the country which was nice. I got out of the airport met up with Anthony and the lovely miss Applie who brought me jam which was most tasty! We went to the Tao of Tea where i got caffinated up again (16 hours with no caffiene makes Fiona borderline comatose). Applie endured the sickeningly smoochyness and we went to Yarnia, which is like a sweetie store for knitters, cones and cones of different colours and fibres thatyou can mix and match up into whatever manner of yarn takes your fancy! I got this:
Amid much cries of predictabilty from the wings, its 3.5oz of sock weight pure wool with a bit of sparkle thru it, somewhere int region of 400yds. Now i got this made up and went to pay for it at which point i nearly keeled over, wanna guess how much? $6.60 ! thats like 3 quid! I was shocked by the cheapness, which i must say kinda set the tone for the week. Then Applie departed to go wrangle her kidlets and we went for a look round Powells, which i think were i less sleep deprived woulda been more exciting as i kinda went in looked at the largeness and that was it. At which point we decided pizza and onto the train to Eugene was the best plan of action.
Wednesday you would think would have been a resful day to recoer from trvelling, oh no the bugger decided i was walking up a hill to a prk, which admitedly was very pretty. En Route we stopped in at Dari Mart where i had my first "everytin is bigger in the US" moment:
Thelittle one on the left is what we get in the UK. I also expeienced bisuits and gray which are neither biscuits nor gravy, but plesent enough none the less. Then it was on to the park the ldst city prk of Eugene (ther are many parks) and cotaning a rhodedhendrom garden.
And i thuoght I was supposed to be the tourist? Then we took a stroll back down through the U of O campus, which was very nice and fit nicely into my TV generated images of American college life, kids playing ball games in the quad etc etc. Then the first scary part, meeting his friends!! EEP people came over to watch the adaptation of the Colour of Magic as provided by the British person, thankfully they were all very nice and didnt mock my incoherance.Thursday my ideas of American life were further pandered to with a trip to the malls, i was quite excited. I shopped i think i was fairly restraint in my purchasing, until of course i was let looose on Hot Topic:
Slightly less restraint, i do love it so. We then went to the other mall and hit up target, where i decided that i would buy Anthony a terribly altrustic gift: an electric kettle. Boiling water on a hob takes an age, i need tea and i need it quickly!! I also bought me some DVDs
I have been trying to get the neverendding story on DVD for at least 4 years but it doesnt seem to ever be coming out here, and the L word was cheap so hurrah! I also got me a target bag cos well ytou can never have too many bags
On the way home we stopped in at WinCo so i could sate my American grocery desires, i nearly passed out yet again at the size of the place, the amount of different stuff and the prices! I love the bulk section, i think WinCo is my new Mecca.
A small smattering of what i bought (the rest has been eatted) note the 2lb odd of root beer jelly bellys, which i might add cost all of 5 quid!!Friday we watched Enchanted, which lead to the decsion that i am never allowed to choose the movie at the video store, or at least not unless it is from a pre vetted selection. It was bad. Then at night we went to Bingo, I love bingo! which was fun tho we didnt win, but as it was our first time we got free daubers:
Thus i have a commemerative bingo marker! Then it was back home for board games and much discussion on calculating bingo odds. oh the maths!
Saturday was the trip to the coast, and possibly the worst dfay weatherwise of the whole trip, oh well! We set off making pit stops for coffee and McDonalds brekkie both drive thru, wheee. Then headed out, as we had just had breakfast and didnt really want lunch an hour later we decided to go see the New Carissa a ship wreck near Coos Bay and the wreck of an older ship near by, after some cellphone googlemaps related navigation we found the road leadin to it, which was a sand road thru the dunes, oh no bother the van has all wheel drive... You can guess whats coming
yep we got beached. we tried pushing it which lead to little more than Anthony getting a sand shower after his complaints of hating sand. then a guy with a shovel came to our aid and well dug us further into the sand . Then some guys in a pick up came along and offered us a tow, they let almost all the air out the tires and then after some faffing attached two tow ropes joined together to the back of the van and started towing, at which point one of the tow ropes snapped. So they hooked up just the 1 rope and got us towed. Instead of towing us to the corner where the sand was firm and packed, they towed us further back to where the sand was softer again and left us there, where we preceeded to get stuck again. Next a guy on an ATV and a guy in a hefty pick up came along and with some manovering managed to get us out and back on to tarmac, some 2 hours later... Then we limped to the nearest town to get the tires aired up again and set off again, having never gotten closer than about 2 miles to the wrecks! So then we set off again to go up to Florence for lunch, punctuated by a sudden veer off to go see a lighthouse. In Florence we went to the drive up A+Ws which is big time Americana and muchos cool! We headed on up the coast stopping in Yachats to go to the tide pools but when we got out the car the rain was horizontal so we decided against it. Then we headed to Newport to go to Pirates Plunder, a very cool sorta antiquey beachy piraty shop, which closes at 6, we got there at 5.57 so Anthony played the my girlfriend has come all the way from Scotland card and they let us wander about for 10 mins or so.
of course i bought piraty things, mints and a pirates liscence! Anthony bought me the mug, technically he bought me too, 1 for here and 1 for there. Then we headed to the beach
I touched the Pacific woohoo!
we wrote cheesy things in the sand and generally got rained on. Then it was off to Moe's for dinner, where my delightful boyfriend insisted i try an oyster shooter, yuk yuk yuk yuk, evebtually I'll get the photos of my reaction, they was icky. Then we went home all tuckered out.Sunday we didnt do much thru the day, watched a couple movies and did some knitting, then we went out for dinner with a load of friends before coming back for much apples 2 apples goodness and excitement over the novelty of the kettle. Over the time we took the bus a lot, the buses have a very nifty bike rack t the front:
It just folds down and can fit 3 bike s on or can be folded up when not in use!
Monday we went to the shops. First we went to JoAnns and i managed to get some fusible fleece for my bag i am making
Then we went to the Yarn stores, now i do not need any more yarn, I was also not really wanting to have to carry a projects worth of yarn home, but i felt i should get something thus:
A beaded necklace knitting kit and some 0000 needles ti knit it with , yes they are tiny tiny wee.
Then we went to Monday night knitting:
Which was fun, all the knitters were very nice as knitters tend to be and i got observed because i knit funny and this intregues people. Afterwards we hit up the supermarket and went home.Tuesday we were all domestic with laundry doing and i cooked dinner which caused some confusion as apparently in the US beef stroganoff doesnt contain tomato, oh well. Then it was off to do something truly American... Shoot things! After a stop off at bi-mart to procur ammo and clays we drove out of town to a hillside shooting range to try our hands with a variety of shooty things
One very large shotgun which bruised my shoulder!! I did only manage to hit 1 clay out of 10 but well.Wednesday we went to the Natural History museum and saw the oldest shoes in the World, very cool. Then went and watched some people lob javelins. then we went to the mini golf place and played skeeball which is super fun! Then off to the bowling alley where I had my arse well and truly handed to me but at lest i got into double figures. Oh and Anthony tried to kill me with a bucket of mountain dew, I suspect American portion sizes will never agree with me. Then we walked back to the video store to get a film not of my choosing, en route i managed to photo this sign which i had seen a few days earlier:
Wanna guess what I thot it said?Thursday we went to the shops so i could get a few last minute gifts for people and we wandered past these guys:
LLamas! i wasnt allowed to steal one.Then on Thursday eve we took Sorsha a walk in the evening sun
I think this was shortly before she discovered the edge of the water was steeper than she thought.
There was a pretty sun set. then we took a very tired and very grubby puppy home, so tired she didnt object to being bathed. I packed my suitcase and decided i needed a second so stole one the requiring of a 2nd case was in no small part due to people sending me gifties!Friday it was an early start and onto the train to Portland where we knitted
Then we caught to MAX, listened to soap opera like phone calls and got to the airport got me all checked in then went to watch the planes before we had to say goodbye at which point i may have cried somewhat akin to a small child, which was further driven by looking out of the plane window to see a body standing on the car park roof waving at the plane.Ok so, reasons for 2nd suitcase:
Fantabulous pirate shoes
DS game which Anthony bought me I would like to say because he loves me so but really it was so he could play pokemon (after deleting my save games the bugger)
Awesome pink sheepy converse
Gifties from April, a class of 08 shirt that i might not tempt fate by wearing prior to graduation, possibly the most fab bag ever which got toted all over Eugene, a tape measure which i have eyed up many a time, some postcards and a book of Oklahoma speakings. Thankies!
Next up a parcel from CBear, who after i squeeed over the elephant she made for her kidlets made me a FeefellforAnt (i really did) and a pin cushion along with some yarn, some of which has gone to my mother. Again Thankies
Lastly a parcel from Sobe, some knitpicks she enabled me, sock yarns, sock book, sweeties (of which there were more but i ate em), scone mix DPNs and some rather spiffy DragonFibers Roving! Yay! Much ThankiesI also ordered myself some knitpicks
32" circs in 2, 2,25, 2.75 and 3mm a 32" cable and 4 and 5mm points, thus continuing my quest to never use DPNs again. And some Cadena yarn in Neptue, there was more of it but it beame this:
Lace Leaf Pullover from Loop D Loop. I finished this on the train to tthe airport and much to the amusement of the women opposite put it on straight away and wore it home. its squooshy and lead to some arguement as to the correct execution of a SSK.
OK i think that is it! If you wanna see more pictures then the Flickr set is here
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